Id Entity
by Juanita Dark
Summary: They had gotten off the roads real fast; one suspect and her accessory travelling fast on a screaming motorbike. [Prue, Other]


Title: Id Entity  
  
Author: Juanita Dark  
  
Rating: PG-13  
  
Spoilers: Charmed S3 - Just Harried.  
  
Summary: They had gotten off the roads real fast; one suspect and her accessory travelling fast on a screaming motorbike.  
  
Author's Notes: This was an answer to the 100-word Longing Challenge but it got longer and more complicated until it fit in with the latest Drabble Challenge which must include someone grappling/coming to terms with their (or somebody else's) power or an aspect of their (somebody else's) power. Now this is a little off the track (and part of an actual episode) but the sentiment is still there.  
  
Disclaimer: Charmed is the creation of Constance M. Burge and the property of Aaron Spelling & Co. No profit tended and likewise, no infringement intended.  
  
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Id Entity  
  
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They had gotten off the roads real fast; one suspect and her accessory travelling fast on a screaming motorbike.  
  
TJ had fired up the bike only once the sun was down, occasionally fighting for control on the dirt roads - but using them like friends. For the last hour she had simply leaned into his body, against the wind - noticing that he was as hot now through her denim, beneath her skin as he had been during the daylight hours when they had stopped just short of sex.  
  
She still remembered the night before when she'd almost killed a man. But then, murder wasn't her crime.  
  
The slipstream colours of streetlights and barrooms on the open road were something that filled her heart like a dream. Some other part of herself so parched for a world like this that she feared ever closing her eyes again.  
  
When they stopped the bike again, TJ lit up like a box of matches. He still smelled to her of dark bars on the periphery of violence; the cigarettes in his kisses, a scratchy nicotine enlivened by her hands against his skin, his tongue in her mouth. Dark hair fell over his eyes when he got too far ahead of himself.  
  
Her only argument: he talked too much - and she wasn't entirely sure she could trust herself from, second to second, to stay in one place.  
  
Sure, she wanted to stay - and she pushed TJ's leather jacket off his shoulders, still pushing to that effect until he was back against the ground; but she wasn't sure just who was in control anymore.  
  
He still didn't understand how she'd gotten out of that cop's handcuffs. His long fingers resting now and again against what they could find of her lace, fuchsia underwiring.  
  
But even his detractions couldn't tie him down for long; and it crossed Prue's mind that he was probably just a guy she'd met in a bar - one who was good on a bike but didn't belong in a biker's world - and one who, like her, was having one identity crisis after another, following a breadcrumb trail of moments hoping they'd lead to something else. Somewhere else. Someone else. The thought that she had to escape again made her angry and she decided fast that forethought in any sort of long-term capacity was now for someone else. Someone she'd left far behind.  
  
"You know, I don't really wanna talk about that." Her mouth felt dry. "I mean, I'm here now, that's all that really matters, right?"  
  
"Yeah, but for how long?"  
  
"Do you care?" It would be best if he didn't.  
  
"Well, I did crash your sister's wedding."  
  
She hadn't stopped to see the look on Piper's face - and it was funny how running away had only hurt for a moment or two - and only then when they were on the open road. "Yes, you did," she replies.  
  
"And I am harbouring you from the cops."  
  
"And I appreciate that." So many different 'ands'.  
  
TJ shifted slightly from staring off at the sky behind her: "I may definitely pass for a state behaviour---"  
  
"So then why are you still talking?"  
  
He paused again, the light in his eyes going out with a slight dip of his head: "Prue, I don't need much, but I need to know one thing... are you gonna take off on me again tonight?"  
  
She expects that question, even though it seems an unfair one from someone who'd willingly taken the chances he had, with someone whose name he didn't know until this morning.  
  
"You know, I hadn't really thought about it. I mean, for the first time in my life I'm free, so I'm sorta just living moment to moment. Is that okay?"  
  
"I'm cool with that." Perhaps he could spend the rest of his life shrugging off things like that.  
  
"Cool with that," she echoes, pressing down on him until their lips meet again, making promises with her tongue she's not in the driving seat to respect. The sudden spike of terror in her solar plexus making her pull against his teeth, sitting up bolt straight - vertiginous; the last air in her lungs used to form words: "Oh, not now."  
  
"What's wrong?"  
  
Hand against the dirt, pushing upwards, she's on her feet faster than he can move or follow.  
  
"Prue?"  
  
She registers his disbelief that she would want go now.  
  
"Prue, where are you going?"  
  
Her denim blue gets swallowed in the darkness as she runs, tearing through bushes but feeling herself slipping - she grips the nearest tree like and anchor. She wasn't going anywhere if she could help it. The bark bites into her skin, tearing: "No, I'm free. I'm not going back."  
  
But her body isn't listening. Wisps of a distant magic yank her from one place to another, and her rebellion is bungled.  
  
"No, I will not let you take me!"  
  
Her eyes close in her determination to stay and when they open again she is in the Manor. The sudden emergence of walls engenders an immediate claustrophobic response. Phoebe slams the Book of Shadows shut with an unspoken anger that Prue can already feel gathering behind her own shoulders, forced out along the hairs rising on the back of her neck.  
  
Very slowly her hands close into fists.  
  
Phoebe rises from the couch where Prue's non-astral form lies, not moving - still dressed as a bridesmaid.  
  
The fugitive Prue - the interloper and escapee - narrows her eyes at the sight of herself, her more responsible half, still anchored to home and hearth no matter how far she - the astral subconscious - runs or rides.  
  
Phoebe stops short of raising her voice but her words hang on the air like a tawdry sail, unmoving before the storm:  
  
"Nice spell, huh?"  
  
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End file.
